We were on the road again.  This time we would spend the night in Houston, BC.  The RV park was very nice, and the lady running it had lots of begonias hanging in pots around the office.  I commented on how beautiful they were, and she told me that most of them were 18 years old.  She stored the tubers over the winter, and restarted them in the spring.

                                               Shady Rest Office with Begonias

From here , we are working our way home, with just overnight stops in Williams Lake, BC, and Revelstoke, BC.  They are having a caterpillar infestation around the Prince George area that has decimated the birch trees.  The mountain sides , that have the birch trees , looked like fall, with no leaves on them.  The roads were alive with caterpillars; what a mess  and sad to see.  It covered about 75 miles South of the city.   On the way we passed thru Kamloops, BC,  which is on the Thompson River on its way to the Fraser River.

                                                      Columbia River Valley

 Our next  overnight in Revelstoke was at Noah's Ark RV park, deep in the mountains.
It rained on us all night, but the next morning, it smelled so good. 

                                        Mountains and Ice Fields on the way to Jasper

More later.

We left early on June 10th, journeying to Stewart, BC/ Hyder, AK.  The towns are only 3 miles apart, and when you cross the border, there is no American Customs.  The money is US and the signs are in miles, different from Canada, in kilometers.   When you cross back to Stewart, you clear Canadian Customs.  The towns are situated on the end of the Portland Canal, a channel that runs 90 miles from the Pacific Ocean.  It is a deep water port, and they load ore from the mines and logs to go overseas.

                                                     Offloading Logging Truck at Stewart

On the way, we ran across this helicopter working on a new power line the Canadians are building into the North country.

                                                               Helicopter Long Lining


We spent several days touring the area.  The drive in, is stunning, with the Bear Glacier right by the road.  One the other side of the road, a few miles on, was the Wall of Tears.  The whole mountainside was covered with small waterfalls.  What a beautiful site.

                                                                    Bear Glacier                                          

                                                                       Wall of Tears

                                                                       Wall of Tears

                                                Looking Up the Valley Towards Stewart, BC

                                           Estuary Boardwalk on Tidelands, Stewart, BC

After several relaxing days, we restarted our trip.  Phoxie Lou has had quite a trip with us.  She is a real trooper, and I am sure she wonders what scene will be out the windows next,

                                                     I am really relaxed, today, Dad
More later.

We headed East from Teslin, and spent one night at our least favorite RV park, just west of Watson Lake.  It was convenient for us to start our trip down the Cassiar Highway from there, though.  We are starting to head on the way home.  The Cassier Highway  goes South thru Dease Lake, BC, and ends up on the Yellowhead Highway east of Prince Rupert, BC on the coast and West of Prince George in the interior.  Our first night was spent at Iskut, BC.  On the way, we crossed the Stikine River, on of the major rivers, that start in BC and it ends up between Wrangell and Petersburg, AK

                                                                        Stikine River
The road winds down along the river and decends 1000', crosses the river, and then back up 1000'; a long climb.  We stayed at the Mountain Shadows RV Resort.  What a beautiful area.

                                               Mountain Shadows RV Park at Iskut, BC

The next day we headed for Stewart, BC/ Hyder Alaska.  More later.

Teslin, YT RV park is a very nice place to stay.  Here are a few pictures of some of the things we saw on our way.  I couldn't send pictures for a while, but now have better internet service now.

                                                               Tundra Swans
The swans are very noisy, worse than geese.  The next pictures are of Roberta and I at the USA/Canada border.  It was surveyed in the early 1900's and then a 20' strip was cut, and it is still being taken care of by both governments.

                                                   I am standing in two countries

                                              20' Swath From Arctic Ocean to SE Alaska
The pictures of the road conditions olong the way.  This wasn't the worst of them.  It took us 3 hours to make 100 miles on one stretch.  This is the only way to get to Alaska by road.

The top picture shows the white line, and how frost heaved it was.

                                                 Teslin Lake RV Park and Teslin River Bridge

I will add more tomorrow.

On with the travels of the Soare's.  I am sorry that I haven't added to the blog lately.  Everyplace we have stayed for the last few days haven't either had internet, or one was limited to a specific amount, and it wasn't enough for the blog.  I will send pictures when I find a spot to send them.  We travelled to Tok on the GlenAllen Highway, and one of the lakes had lots of tundra swans feeding on it.  It is hard to imagine how noisy they are in the wild, and they make geese look puny.  After Tok, AK, we travelled to Destruction Bay across our favorite frostheaved road.  I can't imagine the truck driver I visited with, at a rest area.  He drives that road four times a week.  He said that the road was better now.  It still took us three hours to go 100 miles.  After Destruction Bay, we motored to Teslin, YT.  What a beautiful campground, right on Teslin Lake.  When we rose in the morning, we looked right out on the lake.  I will add more tomorrow.

We had a very nice visit with our friends in Anchorage, and then visited the Alaska Airmen's Museum.  It is situated on Lake Hood, which is on the International Airport.  It is lined with aircraft. so many I couldn't believe it.

         

                                            Lake Hood and Lake Spenard Seaplane Base

We visited downtown Anchorage and stopped to look across Cook Inlet, and could see Mt. Redoubt, which, as an active volcano, has sprinkled the city many times, with ash.  Also we could see Mt. Illiama, another active volcano.

                                                     Downtown Anchorage Viewing Point

We then drove down to the Turnigan Arm of Cook Inlet.  There is a beautiful view of the mountains across Cook Inlet.  They are 75 to 100 miles away, but look much closer.  They start at sea level, and are 10 to 15,000' high. 

                                                   The Aleutian Range across Turnigan Arm

We departed this morning and headed for Glenallen, AK.  We travelled up the Matanuska
Valley, along the Matanuska River.  The road kept getting narrower and more winding.
Just before one gets to the Tahneta Pass, the Matanuska Glacier comes into view.  It is
in a spectacular valley that runs to the South for many miles.

                                                            Matanuska Glacier

                                                               Tahneta Pass Area

                                          Tahneta Pass Area, Wrangel Mountains in Distance



The Tahneta Pass area is sub Alpine with  lots of muskeg, and mosquitoes and the pass elevation
is about 3300' .   The road improved as we went East.  We are now in a nice RV park in Glenallen,
and are headed to Tok, AK.  The mosquitoes here are big enough to carry you away, and there are swarms of them.

We had an interesting trip to Cantwell, AK.  The wind picked up drastically as we got closer to Denali Park.  It was 25MPH, with gusts to 45MPH.  Needlessly to say, we had to slow down.  When we arrived at the park, it started to rain, and when we woke up in the morning in Cantwell, we had silver dollar snowflakes falling.  We never did see Mt. McKinley, as there was low cloud cover.  This is what we woke up to.

We left Cantwell, and traveled South and crossed Summit Pass, the high point of 2300', between Fairbanks and Anchorage.  We did a side trip to Talkeetna, which I have always wanted to see.  It is the spot where tourists can catch fight to see Mt. McKinley, but not on this day, as the mountain was shrouded in clouds. 

                                                                   Talkeetna Airport

                                              DeHavilland  Beaver Landing at Talkeetna

We crossed the Tannana River South of Fairbanks and crossed an older bridge and took a picture of the the Alaska Railroad river bridge .

                                                         Tannana River at Nenana, AK

                                                    Tannana Bridge at Nenana, AK

                                                      Alaska Railroad Bridge

We are spending several days in Anchorage seeing the sights, and visiting old friends, who flew for ATT Alascom.  They cover all of Alaska, including the Aleutian Chain, with several aircraft, taking technicians to repair the communication systems.